


The Years Behind

by KateLouisaRose



Category: Skulduggery Pleasant - Derek Landy
Genre: Adventure, F/M, Friendship, Humour, Romance, relationships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-18
Updated: 2014-11-22
Packaged: 2018-02-17 21:10:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 7,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2323289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KateLouisaRose/pseuds/KateLouisaRose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The story of China Sorrows and Skulduggery Pleasant, told using the dates of past and present, and the years they thought they had forgotten.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**31 st August, 1657**

China opened the door with a wide and heart-breaking smile that reached her blue, blue eyes. She was a dream. Skulduggery smiled back. His eyes were green; the type of green that used to inspire gushing comparisons to forest canopies and glass bottles, sea water and moss. He had always liked his eyes.

“My darling,” China said in that soft, drifting voice of hers. “I was beginning to think I had lost you once again.” Skulduggery chuckled.

“And wouldn’t that be a tragedy?” He said, following her as she beckoned him inside.

“The most lamentable,” China said seriously, and then smirked.

“I have a little something to show you.”

“That’s a sentence to inspire terror.” Skulduggery said dryly.

“Whatever do you mean?” China feigned innocence. “Hang your hat, Mr Pleasant.”

“Your surprises and your tricks are always at my expense, I have noticed.” Skulduggery replied, studying the doorway as it opened out into a large, open plan room with newly erected wooden beams and a polished oak floor. She would go on to modernise this same room multiple times throughout the years, but Skulduggery would always remember it as it had appeared on that first day that China Sorrows opened its doors. Despite her best efforts, he could still see China’s little symbols etched into the frame. With a touch of any one she could kill him in an instant. He liked that about her.

Skulduggery removed his hat at China’s behest and hung it carefully on the hat stand; one of the only pieces of furniture in the entire room. China turned as Skulduggery ran a hand through his auburn hair and raised an eyebrow at her.

“You have that look of suspicion about you, I don’t like to see it.” China said curtly, hands placed primly on her hips below her tiny waist that was only made smaller by the tight binding of an elaborately embroidered corset.

“I’m greatly suspicious about most things by now, Miss Sorrows.” Skulduggery replied calmly.

“Not about me though,”

“About you? I really couldn’t say.”

China ignored the wink he sent her and turned her back on him, her heavy skirts sweeping the floor.

“My little project,” China announced, sweeping her arms around the space. Skulduggery walked further into the room, noting the sparse shelves lined with neat books and a small desk to one side. There were no windows, but the lighting was warm and comfortable; there were a few antique carpets dressing the bare floorboards, and it suited China perfectly.  

“It’s… quaint. I wouldn’t, perhaps, go as far to call it a library though.” Skulduggery said.

“Oh my dear,” China cooed, “I’m just getting started.”

She took his gloved hand and led him through the bookcases with a wild, impetuous glee that Skulduggery could not remember seeing on her since.

* * *

“Of course I’ll have to get ever so many wonderful books,” China gushed, running her fingertip along the spines with tenderness that Skulduggery was suddenly, ridiculously jealous of.

“You are an idealist and a perfectionist China.” Skulduggery laughed as she drifted between the shelves with such delight and fervour, dwarfed by the knowledge she had compacted into the tomes that surrounded her.

“And don’t you love that about me, Skulduggery?” She smiled, stopping in front of him and touching his warm cheek with pale, elegant fingers. Skulduggery dropped a kiss on her lips.

“I adore that about you.” He replied.

China laughed musically and wandered away again, lifting a book from the nearest shelf and leafing through the thin pages.

“You expect to find a dealer or collector with things the way they are?” Skulduggery asked, leaning against the shelf with his arms folded over his frock coat.

“I also have connections.” China replaced the book fondly and turned to face him. “Besides, I like a little challenge.” She said brightly. “It makes things so much more interesting.”

“We’re facing more than a little challenge,” Skulduggery said, sobering quickly.

“Hmm.” China murmured, straightening Skulduggery’s tie. “I hear we’re on the brink of war,”

“So I’ve been told,”

“And yet, here we are.”

Skulduggery smiled fondly and tucked a piece of China’s long, dark hair behind her ear.

“Here we are.”

 


	2. Chapter 2

**19 th June, 1669**

China’s bedroom was tasteful and bright. Her sheets were Egyptian cotton and her covers were of rich silk, the colour of dried blood. The gossamer drapes by her window drifted dream-like in the fragrant breeze. One could almost forget the carnage that lay beyond the safety of the little room.

China lay down on the bed, her hair falling about her shoulders in dark waves, covering the growing number of symbols etched into her skin. She beckoned to him and Skulduggery smirked, turning away from her and shrugging out of his jacket.

Skulduggery folded his suit jacket with caution and placed it on the back of the armchair in the corner of China’s bedroom. China watched him, studying Skulduggery in his deep blue waistcoat and fine shirt.

“One of Bespoke’s recent creations, I presume?” China enquired flippantly.

“That it is.” He answered, unhooking his pocket watch from his buttonhole and placing it deliberately inside his coat. “The man has a wonderful skill at his craft. If I’m to be fighting in this war you can be damn sure I’m going to look good while doing it.” Skulduggery continued, joining her on the bed.

China undid the laces of her velvet bodice slowly, then leant in and kissed Skulduggery’s cheek again, and then his thin, smiling lips. She sighed, running her hand across Skulduggery’s broad shoulders and down his back. “He does cut a very fine suit.” She agreed, hands on his waist. “But I think it looks better on the chair, don’t you?”


	3. Chapter 3

**3 rd May, 1672**

Skulduggery watched her sleep, although he knew she wasn’t really sleeping. The sheet was tucked around her and hugged her petite figure and her hair was in deliberate and artful disarray. Despite the tension between them, it seemed that they were never truly able to be apart for long. The path China was following was a dark one, but no less dark than his own. It surprised Skulduggery sometimes, to know how alike they really were. Perhaps that was why they had never belonged together, even if they could not yet see it.

“At what point would the phrase ‘kiss me I’m Irish’ be appropriate to use?” Skulduggery enquired.

China cracked an eye open. “Not as long as you’re living.” She replied.

Skulduggery smirked, joining her on the bed. China opened her eyes again as Skulduggery kissed her sweetly, one hand in her hair.

“Should I bother to ask how you got in?” She said when they parted. “And please don’t tell me you’ve got blood or dirt or something equally as awful all over my sheets again.”

“Window,” Skulduggery replied, “and no, I haven’t.”

“Was it not a particularly bloody fight? Pity.” China sighed, turning her head to the side and studying Skulduggery’s worn coat and tattered shirt, the same he had been wearing for several months now in between missions.

“It was, actually, but you hit me so hard last time that I remembered to shower.” Skulduggery replied dryly.

“Such a shame too, I would have liked to join you.” China mused. Skulduggery gave up, falling down beside her on the bed. He turned to her.

“There’s just no pleasing you, is there?”

“Never,” China replied, dragging him in for a kiss.


	4. Chapter 4

**15 th July, 1698**

The Library was thriving; her patrons had nearly tripled in number since she had opened it all those years ago. The symbols on the door frame glowed passively as people went through it. In the sorcerer world, all information was conveyed by word of mouth; China’s Library, it seemed, was no exception. Her customers appreciated her eclectic variety of material on magic and history, dark pasts and grim tomes on creatures and stories of ambiguous truth that were collected in the small apartment.

She hadn’t heard him approach, but she knew he was there.

“Not so quaint now, is it my darling?” She said softly as she turned to face him.

“It’s very…you.” Skulduggery Pleasant remarked, taking off his hat. “It’s ever so busy and covert and extraordinarily tasteful.”

“Busy, Skulduggery? I rather think you should be turning that word on yourself.” China said stiffly. She didn’t have to look at the stainless steel band on Skulduggery’s left hand, but Skulduggery was suddenly conscious of it heating to the degree of burning. He twisted it uncomfortably, but refused to remove it.

“China,” He warned. China shrugged one delicate shoulder and tapped the symbol on her wrist once more. The ring cooled.

“I won’t ask how they are, because I simply don’t care.” She said frankly.

Skulduggery inclined his head. “Very well.”

The wrinkles that had begun to appear around his eyes when she had been with him just ten years before had all but vanished. It vexed her that he could be using magic more now than he had been then, to maintain such enduring youth. Skulduggery’s ability to find the apparent ‘love of his life’ in ten short years, however, surprised and irked China more than she would let on.  

 “You, however, have me interested.” China said calmly. “You’re making quite a name for yourself out there in the big bad world.”

“I’m not the only one.” Skulduggery replied, “You wouldn’t believe how many people were tripping over themselves to be the one to bring this to you.”

He reached inside his coat – China noted the gun holster strapped to his hip as his clothes shifted – and produced a brown paper parcel. China smiled slowly; she had always loved mysterious parcels.

“It’s been a while,” China said, disguising her curiosity.

“I wanted to bring you something of real value this time.” Skulduggery answered. “And what is that called, by the way; a charm, a hex? What is it about you that makes everyone fall idiotically in love with you?” He asked as he handed the parcel over. “I’ve heard stories of your irrefutable love from no less than twenty-six men and women while I was searching for that damn book.”

“I make an impression,” China replied by way of explanation.  

“You do indeed.”

China turned the package over in her hands, tapped one nail against the string holding it together. She ran her fingertips along the surface of the cover and tilted her head.

“What is it?” She asked.

“You see,” Skulduggery huffed, “the beauty of the parcel is in the opening. If I told you I would be depriving the parcel of its entire raison d’etre.”

China scowled at him with shapely eyebrows. “I do hate when you talk like that,” she said in mild irritation.

“Then I shall simply never stop.” Skulduggery replied impatiently. “Open it.”

China took her time mapping the surface of the parcel with her fingertips for a second longer. Her eyes widened.

“You haven’t-” she faltered, staring down at the parcel again.

“I really couldn’t say.” Skulduggery shrugged again, trying to hide his smirk.

“You found it,” China exclaimed, tearing into the paper. _Oh my._ “You found it, you found the book?!”

“I did,” Skulduggery grinned, watching her as she caressed the gilded spine and flipped through it carefully, scanning the pages with fervour.

“It’s... it’s so beautiful. I didn’t think it would be this beautiful.” China murmured.

She thought for a moment that she had seen that old look, that devoted, adoring look flash across Skulduggery’s face as he watched her. She must have been mistaken. That look belonged to somebody else now.

“Skulduggery I-”

“Think nothing of it.” Skulduggery said. “Now, how about a tour?”

* * *

“Naturally I’ll have to knock through to the other apartments, just as soon as things get a little bigger.” China was saying, showing him the bulging bookcases and books piled on the floor where there was no room for them.

“You might want to make some enquiries about that,”

“Oh, I’m very persuasive.” China replied. She was still holding the book Skulduggery had brought her close to her chest. She had not decided where she was going to put it yet.

“China,” Skulduggery said, “I have to go.”

China turned back to him and fixed a smile on her face. “Of course,” She said.  

“Inside the book is our address,” Skulduggery said as an afterthought. China’s expression darkened. “ _My_ address, my address is in the book.” He corrected himself quickly.

Something resembling guilt surfaced from deep within China, but she pushed it down and nodded. She needed his trust, she needed his faith in her. She didn’t know what she was going to do, but she needed Skulduggery to believe in her for a little while longer. He still thought she was the same person he had loved a lifetime ago, and she needed that security for now. She hated that pretty little thing he had picked up from God knows where and made his wife. Seeing that wedding band on his finger hurt more than she expected it to, but she was China Sorrows; she had men falling at her feet and offering up their lives for her whenever she called. What did it matter if Skulduggery Pleasant did not count in that number of devoted? She had loved him once; that was all.

 


	5. Chapter 5

**23 rd October, 1700 **

His bones were not clean when they washed up on the bank on that cold October morning. The bag in which they had been thrown was trailing black ash and dark blood in the brown water. The sky was overcast, and no birds were singing.

He knew with undeniable certainty that he was still there. He had a consciousness, and it was clamouring at the unfairness of it all, of a pathetic life still bound to old bones.

He could feel everything distantly; a collection of vertebrae sticking together with left over cartilage, the charred remains of intestine sitting heavy in the cradle of his pelvis, the finger bones still partially attached by strings of gristle. He put these together first. His magic was still there holding together the little pieces of his body enough for him to reach out with it and just pull, ever so slightly. The finger bones clicked together with a wet pop and he fought the urge to scream; something he was faintly aware that he could still do. He flexed his hand and clawed his way towards the opening of the bag. It wasn’t tied very tight. He loosened the strings enough to get the detached hand out in the open. He could feel the water lapping at the bottom of the bag. Better drag the rest of him out soon, then.

His hand – it was his right hand – retrieved a long, heavy bone. Femur. He felt it in a strange, uncomfortable manner like he was removed somehow from the process of his own reconstruction. He felt around; pushed a little again and felt a series of clicks and clacks as his forearm attached itself to the tiny bones inside his wrist and rejoined the hand that was all alone on the bank. Satisfied, he sent the other hand out after it, and then a couple of toes. It was a slow and painful process, but the pain was a fantastic, glorious pain. The grief of the loss of his family arose suddenly as memories began to return to him, but he pushed it down; this dark, animal anger so dangerous and vile. It was like putting pressure on coal; his past and his losses were pushed so far down that they eventually became something much more, something cold and frightening. He hardened to something brilliant and deadly, a rough and bloodied diamond of purpose and direction.

His skull was the worst part. He couldn’t really _see_ as much as feel the pieces of his scalp still attached, and the few chunks of soft brain slapping gently against the inside of his cranium as he turned his head. He had managed most of a torso and was just rooting around inside the bag for his little toe and the end of his left thumb when a piece of lank, dirty hair fell in front of his ‘face’. He recoiled in disgust, and he was a _man_ (to use the phrase loosely) but he would have cried right there if he had functioning tear ducts. He held it gingerly between his fingers and gave a tug. The piece of scalp came away with a sucking noise and he flung it far away from him before he could think about it too much. He had _loved_ his hair.

When he was properly assembled, he crawled towards the edge of the water. His bones were contaminated with dried blood and charred black flesh from the fire, and he dipped a hand into the dirty water and began to clean himself. He was half afraid that the hand would just float away, but the water ran around and between the bones where they were joined to one another and nothing happened. Flecks of skin detached themselves and floated down the river with the current. He held his hand up and studied it. There was nothing physical to hold the bones together now; there was a small gap between each one and yet they kept their structure. He wiggled them and there was a brief, ridiculous moment of wonder and disbelief before something slippery fell through the bottom of his jaw and landed beside him on the dirt. He peered at the piece of brain before flicking it away, desensitised by the horror of the past few hours.

The sun was beginning to set and he carefully removed his skull from his spine again and held it in his hands. He looked up at his headless body curiously and then submerged his head in the water, rubbing over the smooth bone with his thumbs until he was certain the clean, pale white would be showing through the gore. His ribs were still blackened by soot and there was a small nick in his shoulder blade where he had been stabbed during a battle a few years before. He noted as he reattached his head that the third toe on his left foot was still slightly askew where he had broken it as a child. It occurred to him how unique his bones were, despite the lack of real physical features to distinguish him from any other skeleton. They retained the evidence of years of fighting and living and breathing, and the thought comforted him somewhat as the sun dipped beneath the horizon and he was plunged into darkness.

He stood up, feeling naked and vulnerable and alone. He turned his back on the bank where he had washed up hours before, and he looked towards the horizon where smoke was rising and twisting and curling into the night sky above the battlefield where the secret war still waged.

Skulduggery Pleasant raised his head and watched as the clouds parted and the moon appeared full and bright, surrounded by stars. He clicked his fingers and summoned a flame, and then he tried speaking.

“Now,” he said, the fire dancing in his palm and flickering on the white bone. “Where was I?”


	6. Chapter 6

**6th January, 1752**

“OK, one, two… three!”

“Paper beats rock.”

“…Two out of three.”

Skulduggery shook his head, pointing wordlessly to the ridge. Saracen gazed at him balefully.

“But I don’t want to.” He said.

Skulduggery tilted his skull menacingly and Saracen swallowed, got onto his hands and knees in the mud and began to crawl towards the top of the ridge to get a better view of the enemy.

“I’d almost feel sorry for him,” Anton Shudder commented in a whisper. Skulduggery looked at him.

“Almost?”

Shudder shrugged. “He ate the last sausage this morning. No man can forgive that.”

“I will _slaughter_ a pig and _make_ you sausages if you don’t make me do this.” Saracen hissed from halfway up the hill. Skulduggery pressed a finger to his non-existent lips and pointed to the top of the ridge.

“If he can’t find out what discipline the soldiers are, how exactly do you propose finding out their weakness? Corrival told us nothing of this branch.”

“Saracen knows things. And if not, we’ll find a way.” Skulduggery replied. Anton glanced at him and sighed very softly.

“You’re going to do something really stupid, aren’t you?”

Skulduggery inclined his head. “Probably.” He replied. “Where are Dexter and Larrikin, and Ghastly for that matter?”

“Bugger if I know.”

“Saracen’s coming down the hill.” They watched in silence for a few moments. There was a muffled yelp.

“I think the word you’re looking for is rolling. No… no he’s falling down the hill.”

Skulduggery nodded sagely. “That he is.”

The heavy rain of the last few days had saturated the ground, making puddles into bogs and causing any grass to disappear in a soup of mud and water. The hill they sheltered behind had become nature’s equivalent of a slip ’n’ slide.

Saracen stumbled to a halt at their feet. “Three soldiers on watch. None of them are using any power that I can see. They’re around a fire. They could be Elementals I suppose, although one was wearing a thin metal band on his wrist; they could also be Necromancers.” He stared off into the distance for a long couple of seconds. “It’s also possible that they could have been Adepts. They weren’t doing much. It’s hard to tell.”  

Anton looked at him. “That’s so helpful, thank you.” Rue glowered at him.

“Skulduggery, what are we doing?” Skulduggery took a moment to stare up at the ridge. He placed a gloved hand on his jaw and rubbed it absently. His teeth parted like he was about to speak, but at that moment Larrikin burst from the bushes nearby, trailing a very bedraggled and irate Ghastly Bespoke behind him, and ran up to the ridge. He waved his arms frantically, screaming at the top of his lungs.

“Come and get me you lazy good-for-nothing pack of yellow-bellied lily-livered scoundrels!”

He gave a yelp, ducked quickly and folded into a forward roll, coming out of it skidding down the muddy hill as a blast of orange fire exploded on the ridge behind him.

“Elementals!” He yelled as he sprinted past, turning on his heel quickly and facing their enemies as they came sliding down the hill after him. Dexter Vex appeared to Skulduggery’s right, cuffing Larrikin round the back of the head as effortlessly as swatting a fly before settling into a fighting stance.

Some of them might have been Elementals, but they carried pistols in holsters around their waists. One of the men sent another torrent of fire at Skulduggery, pulled his gun and fired it simultaneously.

“Oh, that’s just showing off,” Skulduggery grumbled as he recovered from a leap to the left, taking out his own revolver and firing at the man out of spite.

“Save your bullets,” Vex shouted, kicking another man’s legs from under him. “You’ll need them for the others.”

“Oh hell,” Ghastly swore a few paces away. Skulduggery felled the man in front of him with a snap of his hands and a bullet for good measure.

“Gentlemen,” Larrikin said bravely, “it’s been an honour.”

“We’re not dead yet,” Saracen pointed out.

“Speak for yourselves,” Skulduggery replied dryly.

At that moment another wave of soldiers cascaded over the hill. The Dead Men looked at one another.

“Although,” Shudder said diplomatically, “I’d give it another five minutes.”

 


	7. Chapter 7

**24 th November, 1997**

Gordon Edgley had been in love precisely three times in his life. As he stared at the beautiful woman before him, barely suppressing a sigh as she smiled indulgently with full, red lips, he was certain that this was the last time he would ever be in love. She was the one. She was perfect and stunning and she was… laughing at him.

“Look at that,” Skulduggery Pleasant said disapprovingly. “An award-winning, critically acclaimed author of horror and you’ve turned his brain to scrambled eggs. What will people think?”

China shrugged one delicate shoulder and tilted her head to one side.

“What a peculiar little man.” She said, genuine interest tainting her smooth voice. Gordon liked that voice very much, when it wasn’t mocking him.

“Excuse me madam, but I happen to be a very talented gentleman of good intent. Please stop seducing me or I will be obliged to… to…” China smiled at him again expectantly. “…I love you,” said Gordon.

“Oh for God’s sake,” said Skulduggery.


	8. Chapter 8

**24 th November, 1997**

Gordon Edgley had been in love precisely three times in his life. As he stared at the beautiful woman before him, barely suppressing a sigh as she smiled indulgently with full, red lips, he was certain that this was the last time he would ever be in love. She was the one. She was perfect and stunning and she was… laughing at him.

“Look at that,” Skulduggery Pleasant said disapprovingly. “An award-winning, critically acclaimed author of horror and you’ve turned his brain to scrambled eggs. What will people think?”

China shrugged one delicate shoulder and tilted her head to one side.

“What a peculiar little man.” She said, genuine interest tainting her smooth voice. Gordon liked that voice very much, when it wasn’t mocking him.

“Excuse me madam, but I happen to be a very talented gentleman of good intent. Please stop seducing me or I will be obliged to… to…” China smiled at him again expectantly. “…I love you,” said Gordon.

“Oh for God’s sake,” said Skulduggery.


	9. Chapter 9

**18 th September, 2007**

She was a firecracker, this one. He could only pretend to dislike her for so long. Soon enough he had to admit that she was intriguing and witty and clever, like another girl he had met a few lifetimes ago. Stephanie Edgely was bound for great things; he could recognise the fight in her, the will to survive and the stubbornness that made her think she was untouchable. She reminded him of himself when he was a young man. She reminded him of China in her youth and a thousand other people he had fought beside. He vowed to make sure that she would never fall, that she would always be strong and true to herself. He had known so many others that had failed in this endeavour.

Skulduggery kept a hand on her shoulder as they walked through the passageway and out into the library. He hadn’t visited China in years; years that were entombed in icy eyes that studied him like a dissected frog and made him feel as small as an insect. He let his hand fall from Stephanie’s shoulder and spoke as civilly as he could, always aware that there was too much left unsaid, and too little time to voice all those words even if he was given a thousand years to do so.

China had grown used to the unnatural stiffness with which Skulduggery moved now, and clutched at memories where they would dance around her little apartment, even in front of strangers at the Requiem Ball. He was still graceful, but in a different way. Already when China had met him he was a hardened man, but the years had only turned him further against her. If there was any part of his aura that still resembled a heart, China knew she had no place there. As they spoke, China was reminded of countless other conversations in which Skulduggery had found something or someone more worthy than her to love. His jaw moved when he spoke, and China imagined the sparkle of his eyes and the deviant set of his lips in place of hollow sockets and exposed teeth.


	10. Chapter 10

**12 th March, 2010**

“Yellow car,”

“Stop hitting me!”

“I don’t make the rules, Valkyrie”

Valkyrie sank lower in her seat and stared out of the window again, rubbing her shoulder. “Yellow car no returns.” She blurted. Skulduggery turned to her.

“That doesn’t count.”

“Of course it counts, take it like a man.”

“Technically-”

“Take it like a skeleton.”

“You can’t just-”

“I said no returns. You didn’t say no returns. Suck it up.”

Skulduggery’s attention went back to the road and they drove in silence for a while.

“Yellow lorry no returns.”

“Lorries don’t count.” Valkyrie told him.

“But-”

“Sorry,” she said, “I don’t make the rules.”


	11. Chapter 11

**14 th June, 2011**

China Sorrows picked up the scalpel, dabbing at the side of her neck with a cotton swab soaked in bright orange betadine to disinfect the area. Her long, dark hair was twisted into a bun, pinned up high at the back of her head and out of the way as she pressed the blade into the skin of her throat where the tendons and muscle jumped and twitched beneath the surface. She did not flinch.

Slowly, artfully, she cut the symbol with precise flicks of the scalpel, blood dripping sluggishly down the graceful column of her neck until she caught it with another cotton swab. She had practised on animal hide and even on the skin of an orange before perfecting the execution of the particular symbol; a remnant of an Aztec immortality spell that would prevent critical injury to her neck, provided she cut the symbols on both sides of it.

Her arms were littered with scars, some of them the result of naïve experiments with symbols and caricatures in her youth which had become infected, others taking the form of needle tattoos in white ink or more traditional techniques learned from the Borneans. China had tried many methods, but had returned time and again to the simplest of them all, and by far one of the most painful. Although many of her earlier symbols were still of some use to her, China found that it was the ones that had been carved out of her skin that were the most effective. During the war she had had a fondness for traumatic tattooing; scrubbing gunpowder or coal dust into the open wounds and leaving it to fester. Those were her battle scars, the mark of conflict that stood out in blackened scar tissue on her skin. The memory of what she had used those symbols for was contained in their ashen colour, the colour of decay.

When she was finished, China pressed a square of gauze to the wound and taped it in place. The new symbol would require a full two days of healing before it was ready to use. She took a breath, flicked a rogue tear away from the corner of her eye, and started on the next one.

 


	12. Chapter 12

**21 st April, 2012**

“Stop fidgeting. How someone with no muscles can be this jumpy I’ll never understand.” China scolded, the pointed tool almost slipping again as she scratched delicately into the white bone.

“Haven’t you finished yet?” Skulduggery said through gritted teeth. China sighed patiently and briefly contemplated strapping him to the chair. She blew on the fine dust that had settled on Skulduggery’s collarbone and brushed a thumb over the new sigils carved into it. They glowed faintly. A layer of waxy looking skin rushed over Skulduggery’s cranium like water over a stone, taking the shape of an unremarkable face. China tapped lightly on another symbol and the face changed, auburn hair sprouting where there had been none before; blue eyes taking the place of brown ones. She ran her fingers through his hair and then stopped herself. Skulduggery looked up at her with different eyes and he tried a wobbly smile.

“How do I look?” He asked. China smirked, patting his cheek. It was cold.

“You’re lucky I didn’t make you ugly.” She told him.

“It’s not so bad.” Ghastly said from across the room,

Skulduggery watched her as she put the tools away. “You’re next.” China told Ghastly sternly. “And please, put that book down, it’s worth more than anything you own.”

“Clearly you haven’t seen the price of a good sewing machine.” Ghastly responded, but sheepishly replaced the book all the same.

China took Skulduggery’s hand where he was feeling blindly around for the little symbols. “Here,” she said softly, placing his finger on the new marks. Skulduggery tapped them carefully, and the face retracted. He stared up at her, and not a person in the world could have told her what he was thinking.


	13. Chapter 13

**4 th August, 2013**

Valkyrie was so, so cold. She didn’t think she’d ever been this cold in her entire life. Or this bored. Or this hungry. Or this tired. In fact, travelling with The Dead Men was proving to be a lot less fun than she thought it would.

“This is about as good as it gets, I’m afraid.” Saracen Rue had explained to her as they trudged up yet another hill. How was it that they kept climbing hills, and yet never coming back down again? Valkyrie groaned despondently and accepted Saracen’s outstretched hand to help her up a particularly steep verge.

“It’s raining again,” Valkyrie pointed out. “Why is it always raining?”

Dexter Vex turned his head. “Well technically the increasing cloud cover does -”

“I think it was a rhetorical question.” Shudder supplied from somewhere near the back. Vex shrugged.

“Are you lot still complaining?” Skulduggery asked, leading their weary troop with vigour.

“No,” everyone responded, except for Valkyrie, who made an angry noise and tripped over a rock.

Skulduggery looked back at her disappointedly. “Under no circumstances is anyone to give her a piggy-back.” He told the others. Valkyrie gave him the finger when he wasn’t looking.

* * *

“No I’m serious, _the_ biggest shoulder pads you have _ever_ seen.” Dexter gasped between laughing. The fire crackled comfortingly and Valkyrie hugged her mug of hot chocolate to her chest against the chill, grinning at their stories.

“OK fair point, but can we please talk about that weekend in Amsterdam?” Saracen said, pointing accusingly at Dexter. “Have you figured out yet if that was a man or a woman?” Vex choked on his coffee and shot Saracen a punishing glare.

“Nineteen Eighty-Six,” he growled, “Miami beach, seven girls, two guys and about four rounds of shots.” Saracen blanched.

“You promised.” He said weakly.

“Never forgive, never forget.” Dexter replied darkly.

“What?” Valkyrie asked, not sure if she wanted to know the answer.

“Let’s just say that the eighties were a formative time for Saracen.” Anton Shudder interjected helpfully, much in the same way that a traffic controller might try to redirect two cars headed for a messy collision  

On the other side of the fire Saracen mumbled something like “It was a phase,” but nobody cared enough to listen.

“And then there was Germany,” Erskine Ravel piped up, turning to Skulduggery.

“Oh no,” Skulduggery responded instantly, “no no no,”

“Oh yes,” Ravel grinned, leaning forwards on his elbows.

“Are we talking about the first or the second time?” Ghastly asked, roused from his meditative silence with a smirk.

“It doesn’t matter,” Dexter pointed out, “both stories end the same, and both contain a case of anthrax and a very fetching cow named Gertrude.”

“You wouldn’t dare.” Skulduggery said, now sounding very afraid.

Ghastly thumped Skulduggery on the back. “Sorry to break this to you, my friend, but we absolutely would.”

Valkyrie Cain propped herself up on her forearms attentively, and prepared to listen.


	14. Chapter 14

**15 th October, 2013**

She didn’t want to see him.

China pulled on her robe and strode to the door, pushing her hair off her face and leaving the false smile behind. Skulduggery stood in her doorway, hat in his hands. He fixed his eye sockets on her tired face and she had a feeling that had he real eyes, they would be filled with pity.

“If you’re here to mock me, you needn’t bother.” She said at first, leaving the door open for him to pass through as she wandered over to an ornate dresser. “We all say ridiculous things when we’re dying.”

Skulduggery closed the door behind him and placed his hat on a table. He was silent as he watched her comb her hair and wipe the last traces of makeup from her eyes.

“I did love you once,” he told her in a soft voice. China said nothing. Skulduggery took off his gloves and flexed his hand, examining the bones.

“And then I killed them,” China said at last.

“Nafarian Serpine killed my family.” Skulduggery interrupted her. “He killed them, he poisoned me and burned my body. He did those things, not you.” He took a slow, useless breath into non-existent lungs. “I don’t forgive you, China.” She looked up.

“I’m glad of that. I don’t forgive you for what you did, either.” China told him. Skulduggery just lowered his head. He still had nothing to say to her on that matter. “I gave you orders, Detective.” She reminded him.

“You did.” Skulduggery stood, collected his hat and turned to leave. “Grand Mage.” He said, touching the brim of his hat and leaving China alone. When the door had closed behind him, China wiped her eyes, and went to bed. 


	15. Chapter 15

**9 th July, 2019**

China sat regally on her throne, sorting through her mail and general correspondence. She had very much enjoyed being Grand Mage during the war against Darquesse, but now they were living in peacetime it had become decidedly dull. There also appeared to be quite a lot of paperwork. China hated paperwork.

As she added her looping signature to yet another form, there was a rap at the door. It was a sharp sound, as though someone had knocked their bare, skinless knuckles against the wood. China set the paperwork aside and called for them to enter. Skulduggery strode in; he looked remarkably happy, for someone who had spent the last five years bemoaning the self-inflicted exile of his literal partner in crime. Skulduggery stopped in the middle of the floor and swept his arms to the side in presentation.

“I present to you the honourable Valkyrie Cain, returned from her pitiful five year exile to graciously rejoin our ranks in the battle against evil.” Skulduggery declared as Valkyrie walked in.

“Can you please stop announcing me into every room I enter?” She asked slowly, desperately, sounding a lot like someone who had been repeating that sentence far too much in the last hour.

“Valkyrie, darling,” China said, stepping down from the throne and folding her into a hug. “Refreshed from our little holiday, are we?”

“Valkyrie got a dog.” Skulduggery informed her. “I don’t like the dog.”

“She’s called Xena, and she likes you.” Valkyrie told him.

“She tried to chew my femur.”

“That means she likes you.”

“Xena, the warrior princess. How apt.” China said approvingly, breaking up their banter. Five years was virtually nothing to a sorcerer, after all. Valkyrie and Skulduggery seemed to have picked up where they had left off before Valkyrie performed her little vanishing act.

For five years Skulduggery had been making visits, both invited and covert, to the Edgely household. Most of the time Melissa and Desmond welcomed him happily into their home, but there was only so much they could tell him about how little Alice was doing at playgroup, and then at school, and how often they heard from their other daughter. China knew that Skulduggery secretly boosted himself up onto that familiar window ledge of Valkyrie’s bedroom when the Edgleys were out and let himself in. She was sure he would stand in the middle of that room and look at Valkyrie’s personal belongings and long to one day find her there, waiting for him. He came to China frequently under the pretence of discussing the missions and jobs he demanded in great number to keep himself preoccupied. More often than not the conversations had dissolved in reminiscing about the past. Skulduggery never brought up the years before the recent war, before he met Valkyrie. China knew that she had long since lost the kind of affection he now had for the girl who had been destined to destroy the world. She didn’t feel as though she had a right to miss it, though.

Skulduggery sent Valkyrie regular letters, handwritten and extensive, on the progress of Sanctuary operatives in tracking down the last of the remnants and finding out the method of extraction to rid those like Dexter Vex of his dark passenger. Vex was making a slow recovery as the damage Darquesse had done to his spine during the battle was repaired. He had come very close to death, and lain in the medical bay for a week in a coma before a visit from fellow Dead Man Saracen Rue roused him from it with a splitting headache and a serious case of arseholery owing to the remnant still bonded to his soul. Valkyrie had been able to help there, at least. With her new power she understood how Darquesse had been able to extract the remnant from Tanith Low and had told the doctors all she could before leaving.

When he could, Skulduggery sent emails to which were attached photographs of her little sister and her parents, with messages always saying how much they missed her, and that they wished she would stop torturing herself and come home.

 Valkyrie still looked around eighteen or nineteen years of age, despite now being twenty-four. She didn’t seem to have matured much in those years. Isolation would do that to a person. Skulduggery, for instance, still managed to convince China that he had the petulance and stubbornness of a teenager at times. They deserved one another, which was more of a compliment than it sounded. China listened to their arguing with an amused smile.

“I’d better go check on Xena,” Valkyrie said at last. “Dogs die in hot cars and all that.”

“You know that’s why I never left you in there for too long either.” Skulduggery told her. Valkyrie hit him and he laughed.

When she was gone, Skulduggery turned to China.

“I haven’t seen you this happy for, well, let me think. Yes, about five years.” China teased. Skulduggery tilted his head. “Complete and utter co-dependence is a good look on you.” She informed him.

“I’m going to take that as a compliment.” Skulduggery said. China just smiled again. She thought about telling him that he and Valkyrie belonged together, all the things she had thought for a long time, but she watched him look thoughtfully towards the door and she knew that she had already lost his attention.

“Go on,” China said. Skulduggery looked at her. For a moment she caught a glimpse of the man he would be without Valkyrie Cain. It was a far better man he had become with her at his side. “I’ll brief you tomorrow.”

Skulduggery nodded and gave her a little wave goodbye, retracing Valkyrie’s steps from the room. In that partnership it was never really clear who led and who followed. As he strode to the door, China settled back on her throne. In her empty, mirrored room, China faced her multiple reflections with the same steely, cold indifference practised over many years. The door closed with a soft click, and China allowed herself a delicate laugh, knowing at last that they had reached an impasse.

He had loved her once. That was all.

 

**END.**

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, I've been working on this for a while now and it is fully finished so I will be updating new chapters as regularly as possible!


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